Down the final stretch of Wednesday night’s matchup with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Houston Rockets coach Ime Udoka toggled between a few different lineups.
Udoka played his usual starting five – Fred VanVleet, Amen Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr., Kevin Durant and Alperen Şengün – for a little more than two minutes. He went to a small-ball variation with Tari Eason in Şengün’s place for about 90 seconds, then put Sengun back in for Smith to close out the final 2:10, according to FadeAway’s lineup data.
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What led to the changes?
“Trying to get a stop,” Udoka said.
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Houston couldn’t get enough stops, giving up 35 points in a fourth quarter it lost by 12 en route to its second defeat of the season, 117-107, at Toyota Center. The Timberwolves, playing without star Anthony Edwards, got a strong late-game showing from point guard LaMelo Ball.
Udoka said the Rockets did a good job guarding Ball for about three and a half quarters, and he was right. Ball scored 12 of his 20 points and had two of his six assists in the final seven minutes.
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“I just think we were too loose on them the whole game and they got going,” said Durant, who led Houston with 21 points but was one of three Rockets – along with Şengün and VanVleet – with four turnovers.
Giveaways were a major problem Wednesday, with 22 Houston miscues leading to 33 Minnesota points. Udoka said the Rockets had poor awareness when kicking the ball out after touching the paint against a Timberwolves defense that routinely sent help.
“I lead by example out there, so I can’t be leading the team in turnovers,” Durant said.
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This article originally published at How the Rockets lost their second game of the season: they couldn’t stop LaMelo Ball in final quarter.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
